The Southern Ocean is an important carbon sink, absorbing a large amount of the excess carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere by human activities, according to a new study led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).
The Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC), the only ocean that circles the planet, is speeding up. Scientists are now able to tell that this is happening by taking advantage of a decades long set of observational records.
Not only are rising temperatures leading to rising sea levels but most of the increase in energy in the climate system is occurring in the ocean.
Oceans on Earth are present as a result of equilibrium between degassing and regassing through the interaction of the Earth’s interior. Because of mantle convection and resultant partial melting and melt transfer, water may circulate deep into the mantle and return through Earth’s surface into the oceans.
Over time, sea levels have risen and fallen but Earth’s total surface water was assumed to be constant. New evidence indicates that some 3 billion to 4 billion years ago, the planet’s oceans held nearly twice as much water. This could have initiated the mechanism of plate tectonics and made it more difficult for life …
